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San Jose's first ANA flight to Tokyo took off Friday morning. Aboard is Team San Jose Chairman Michael Mulcahy, who updated us throughout the flight.

Staff
Silicon Valley Business Journal

Meet our source in the sky, SDS NexGen Partners'Michael Mulcahy. Mulcahy, who is Team San Jose chairman, boarded the first All Nippon Airways flight out of San Jose Friday morning as part of the San Jose delegation to Tokyo. We asked Mulcahy to write a travel blog for us about his experiences aboard the inaugural flight. Here's what he had to say at 37,500 feet.

Take off, 11:45 a.m., SJC airport

So far, so good.

You can feel the excitement as everyone is aware of the significance of this first flight. Most of the delegation is sitting in coach, as I can see city shakers like Kim Walesh and Ed Shikada, hoteliers like Rob Ballmer, travel king Marc Casto and many other thrilled members of our delegation.

As we pushed back from the gate, a mass of press were on the tarmac, quite a sight and a proud day for SJC. We are now heading out over the Pacific. The flight lands in 10 hours and 25 minutes in Tokyo/Narita. We'll fly nearly 5,000 miles....non-stop.

I am in coach, 28D. It's a 2-4-2 configuration, I'm in the left side aisle of the set of four seats. A nice Japanese woman heading home is next to me, and a Japanese mother and techie teenager across the aisle from me are in the two-seat section. I have a TV on the headrest ahead of me, a controller on a cord that can be pulled out 3 feet, a USB port to watch movies or music on the iPod I brought. Under the seat is a block of plugs that can accommodate just about any charging need. Gazing upward, the ceiling height is fantastic. The overhead bins angle back so even if you were walking the aisle and got tossed, you wouldn't hit your head on the bin like I've seen on other large planes.

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